SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT (2024)
Readings:
Genesis 22:1-2, 9-13, 15-18
Psalms 116:10, 15-19
Romans 8:31-34
Mark 9:2-10
The Church’s lectionary usually couples the first and third readings, i.e., there is frequently a very definite connection between the first reading and the gospel. Sometimes the connection is obvious; other times, the connection is a little more obscure. This Sunday the connection is of the obscure type.
The first reading from Genesis recounts the familiar story of Abraham having an intimate conversation with God who asks Abraham, without much explanation, to sacrifice his son Isaac as an offering to God. Isaac is his only son, Abraham’s heir, and the answered prayer of his elderly wife, Sarah. The request surely seems remarkably odd from a God who clearly loves Abraham, and pledged to make Abraham’s progeny as many as the “stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore.” [Remember, we are speaking of a time when child sacrifice was sadly not uncommon.] The purpose of this exercise is made clear at the beginning of our reading: “God put Abraham to the test.” God is testing Abraham, just as we often feel tested by God.
Christians view our Genesis story as a prefigurement of the ultimate salvation story, because Abraham is informed by the messenger that “I know how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son.” Our beautiful second reading from Romans bridges the multi-thousand year gap and makes explicit what Jewish Christians are believing: “If God is for us who could be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but handed Him over for us all, how will He not also give us everything else along with Him?” God did send His only Son into our world, and it wasn’t to triumph over the Romans and put them in their place, but it was to peacefully embrace the cross to suffer and to appear to die. This would be a big test for Jesus’ disciples who just could not understand how that could be part of the plan.
Our gospel story of the Transfiguration was meant to be a counterpoint to those who found the suffering and death of Jesus just too much to bear. In fact, the chapter before our Sunday gospel, the precise middle of Mark’s gospel, has Jesus’ first Passion prediction, where He tells His disciples He must got to Jerusalem to “suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days.” Peter takes it upon himself, no doubt speaking for others, to “rebuke” Jesus. The disciples could not imagine the long awaited Messiah suffering, and their pride was no doubt injured as Jesus implied they would sit there and allow that to happen. As they so frequently did, the disciples did not fully understand all of Jesus’ teachings. Their Messiah was going to be a warrior king, who would never accept suffering as part of the normal way of living. In one of the strongest responses of Jesus in the gospels, Jesus turns to Peter and says: “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
This is the context that today’s story of the Transfiguration sits in. Perhaps Jesus knew His disciples were still grumbling about that “suffering” that Jesus said would be a necessary part of their journey, but coming after chapter eight, it clearly was meant to raise the privileged disciples’ spirits (Peter, James, and John) to a new level. Jesus’ Transfiguration clearly showed a Jesus who looked as He would when sitting at God’s right hand, “His clothes became dazzling white,” and He was accompanied by Moses and Elijah (the Law and the Prophets). The success of this display can be measured in Peter’s reaction, who wants to set up three tents: “one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Peter wanted to stay right there, and wallow in the glory that shown before them. But that was not to be, for a cloud interrupted the beauty, and out of the cloud a confirmation of who Jesus is: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him.” It was that same voice the disciples were told had been present at Jesus’ baptism.
We too would like to wallow in the ‘glory moments,’ but we must walk down the mountain and leave the privileged position and rejoin the human race, where suffering and death are omnipresent. Jesus enjoined Peter, James and John not to talk about it (Mark’s ‘messianic secret’), but imagine the difficulty of keeping such a secret. All of the disciples would benefit even from a second-hand account of what happened before their eyes, for all of them would eventually need a glimpse of the glory that awaits those who follow Jesus.
We, too, in this Lenten journey, need glimpses of the glory that awaits us. We are privileged to hear the Scriptures proclaimed, and we are meant to ponder them and to wallow in their wisdom. They are not like the vacuous words of politicians which frequently have no substance. They are the living Word of God, which can be trusted and used to lift our spirits when harsh reality gets us down. At the beginning of this Lenten journey we long for words that will transform and transfigure us into the kind of men and women God wants us to be. Our God is as patient and kind to us as He was to Peter, who in spite of His firmness with him, raised him up to be a pillar of the kingdom He was founding. May we always keep our sight focused on the glory that has been promised us and which awaits us in God’s kingdom, where Jesus lives and reigns, forever and ever.
parishionersforjustice.com 